


pity and guile

by PenelopeJadewing



Series: We'll Set the World to Rights [2]
Category: Naruto, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Midoriya is the best friend, Reminiscing, Uchiha Sasuke-centric, just what Sasuke needed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 21:05:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16751512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PenelopeJadewing/pseuds/PenelopeJadewing
Summary: All Sasuke wanted to be was a Hero like his brother. But that pipe dream is long gone out the window and Sasuke can't think of anything other than what he saw That Night these days. Itachi's bloody eyes haunt his nightmares. And he's lost hope in Heroes.Enter Midoriya Izuku.





	pity and guile

**Author's Note:**

> so. i am HECKA late but I blame the holiday week. Threw me off for a plethora of reasons... but here we are! This takes place after the events of My Brother, My Hero and I've Waited So Long... After this, I get to jump ahead to anime timeline stuff so YAY no more trying to write from the perspective of an 8-year-old!
> 
> Stay tuned for more!
> 
> \- P.J.

As much of a Hero as Itachi?

What a joke.

Sasuke kicks hard at a loose rock and sends it skidding across the open concrete that makes up the foundations of the playground basketball courts. The rock skitters and cracks, dances under the feet of a handful of elementary students who have finished eating already and occupy themselves playing HORSE, where he loses sight of it. He doesn’t stop; just keeps walking, toward his Spot. The furthest corner of the playground, right up against the chainlink fence that separates it from the rest of the block… as if a flimsy barrier like that is going to keep anybody in or out.

It’s lunchtime, but he hasn’t bothered bringing his lunch. He’s not hungry. Not usually, not these days.

The chainlink is quiet at the spot farthest from the doors that lead back into the school building. It’s a nice place where he can distance himself as much as possible from his fellow classmates, those loud, idiotic sheep. All they care about is their dumb little friend groups and their stupid little games and which Hero is cooler than the other… Childish. Naive. Idiots.

He’s learned now. He knows what they’re all trying not to think about.

Heroes don’t exist.

If that school monitor waiting by the doors decided to do something awful, she could probably kill at least a dozen kids before anybody even showed up to stop her. And nobody even stops to think about that, nobody would guess an elementary school staff member would do something so horrible. But anybody could be horrible… anybody. You can never tell.

You can’t trust anyone.

Carefully, he sits himself down at his spot and curls his knees up to his chest. He’s found that if he looks small and angry, the other kids don’t bother him. They better not, anyway, or else he’s not afraid to give somebody a black eye before the teacher comes for them. He wants to be alone—now, tomorrow, always.

People are so stupid. Always asking him questions, trying to make him talk about what’s wrong… What do they know? They don’t know anything, they can’t understand what he’s been through. Who really can? Not even his mother understands, she wasn’t _there…_

_“My foolish little brother…”_

He closes his eyes and thinks about… anything else. He doesn’t want to think about that night, he doesn’t want to see those red eyes in his head…

No, they definitely can’t understand. They’ve never seen a hero fall like he did. None of their brothers ever _murdered_ their parents.

_“I’ve demonstrated my power… and now you’ll hate me. You’ll need that hate. Let it fester… ”_

Tightening his grip on his own arms, almost until it hurts, Sasuke glares harder across the playground. The various little clusters of kids just chatting away, enjoying their lunch in their little cliques. No cares. No worries. Acting like nothing bad could ever happen to them.

Sasuke knows better. All it would take is a single moment. A single moment to ruin everything.

_“So naive… Can’t you see? It was all an act.”_

He can’t forget it… not any of it. After Itachi had put him to sleep that dreadful night, he woke up in a hospital. All white walls and a strange lady standing over him—he hadn’t had to stay long, but maybe that would’ve been better. When his mother took him home, he hid in his room for… well, he’s forgotten how long now. He never wanted to come out again, but at some point, he had to because human bodies are stupid. He thought…

How could he have thought everything would be fine after what had just happened?

On the way to the bathroom, he found his mom in the living room, just… staring. Blank-faced. Toward the front door. She wouldn’t respond to anything Sasuke said.

He knew why. And in that moment… he couldn’t think. Something hot had swelled up inside him, painful, bringing tears to his eyes and making him grind his teeth so hard they rattled and then he’d lunged up the stairs as fast as his feet could carry him, tripping at least twice.

Looking back, he doesn’t know what he thought he could do. He was too small… small and weak.

_“What’s that face, Sasuke… you look upset.” Itachi almost sneered. “Did you need something?”_

_Never before had that invitation felt so mockingly cruel. The burning in Sasuke’s chest swelled thicker. He wanted to cry. Wanted to scream. Could do neither. Only stare with every ounce of pure loathing he felt bubbling up from the deepest parts of his soul, startled by his own fury. Never in his young life had he felt so angry._

_Was that… hate?_

Itachi had vanished out the window before Sasuke could even take a step. And the evening sky wasn’t nearly enough to swallow up the scream Sasuke sent up to it. He hadn’t… he couldn’t find words at the time, didn’t know what to do with the fire inside. His mother had come running a few seconds later—worried to death, of course, since she’d seen Itachi enter before he trapped her in a dream. She was crying, even as she rocked Sasuke by the still-open window.

Sasuke had been crying too.

His mother thought it was because he was sad. Because he was scared. Grieving.

No. The tears came because his body didn’t know how else to filter the burning that felt like it was swallowing him whole from the inside out.

They prick his eyes even now, as his insides simmer. With a snarl, he shakes his head emphatically, like he might throw the feeling off, away. He doesn’t want it, not now. It makes it too hard to think and he can never to anything about it so it just leaves him frustrated and lost and—

“Hey.”

The voice makes Sasuke jump and he snaps his head up to glare at the person who somehow managed to get so close to him. He should have been paying attention. If it had been a bad guy, or Itachi—

It’s not, of course. It’s just a boy with a mess of dark hair and a smattering of freckles on his cheeks… Wait. Sasuke knows this kid. What was his name…

The kid looks at him with big green eyes that are so full of pity, it could make Sasuke sick. He crouches low, holds out a brightly-colored red and blue bento box wrapped in gold ribbon and sets it between them. Sasuke eyes it and the boy’s earnest face with rising suspicion, eyes narrow, tucking his face back against his arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees. He doesn’t want pity, he doesn’t need it. Pity is for weak people, stupid people. He’ll never be either again.

Quietly, the familiar boy tilts his head to one side and opens his mouth. The question that comes out is quieter still, shy, hesitant.

“You wanna share my lunch?”

Midoriya. That’s his name. The kid who Itachi once rescued from a bully, the kid who didn’t want to tell his mom about all the horrible things that were happening to him, so she wouldn’t worry…

The look in his eyes isn’t pity. At least, it doesn’t look like it… What is it… It’s almost like… understanding?

But how could he? There’s no way he could. All the kids in school know at least something about what happened, at the very least the fact that Uchiha Itachi, son of the Number 3 Hero, turned evil and murdered a bunch of people before disappearing. The TV won’t shut up about it, and neither will the kids. They think he can’t hear them whispering in the hallway, but he can. He’s no fool. Not anymore.

So how then can Midoriya look at him with those eyes? Like he can see exactly what Sasuke’s feeling… just like Itachi used to.

For reasons beyond Sasuke’s understanding, his eyes start to burn again. He presses his face harder into his arms, hiding away from his classmate. No, he doesn’t want to do this… he doesn’t want this Not Pity or whatever it is, he doesn’t want to feel like this anymore. He doesn’t want to cry, he wants to hate, but he can’t hate with those green eyes looking at him like that.

It makes it worse when Midoriya sits down beside him without a word and opens the bento up. The contents are nothing spectacular… just a little bit of what looks like leftovers. He plucks out a few bites of pork and one of the rice balls before nudging the box gingerly across the cement, toward Sasuke’s hip. The whole time, Midoriya doesn’t say another word.

“…why are you here?” Sasuke finally manages to ask through a cottony throat that he then tries desperately to clear.

Midoriya glances his way, his eyebrows rising. “Oh… well. I saw you sitting over here by yourself without any food and I just thought… I thought I’d see if you wanted some.”

Hm. That’s… kind of like pity. But it’s also something else… Sasuke grunts a little. “I don’t. I’m not hungry…”

“Oh,” Midoriya blinks, looking a little bit disappointed for a fleeting second before he perks back up again. “That’s all right. Is it okay if I sit with you anyway?”

His eyes are so bright… Sasuke blinks slowly, processing the guileless innocence that just… pours out of them like sunshine. What _is_ this kid?

He knows one thing. This definitely isn’t pity. It’s not like all those suffocating looks the old ladies at his father’s funeral kept giving him, looks that said through glassy tears how sorry they were for his tragic loss. His loss. They kept saying that over and over, to him, to his mother. As if they just… misplaced his dad somewhere and he turned up dead. Those looks said nothing about why they were having a funeral in the first place, or why Itachi wasn’t anywhere to be seen. They ignored the truth that lurked like a monster under the bed, pretending that all they can do is say how _sorry_ they are and then move on with their lives.

Move on. Let go. Leave it to the strong people to bring justice. Their pity told Sasuke that he was helpless. They wanted to sooth him in his helplessness. Their pity was insulting, and this, what Midoriya is doing now… isn’t doing that.

No… somehow, some way… Sasuke just feels _seen_.

Yes, that’s it. Midoriya is _seeing him_. Just him. Not his dad’s death, not his brother’s betrayal, not his mother’s tears… Just another kid sitting alone on the playground.

Tentatively, Sasuke reaches for the other rice ball nestled in the bento box. And Midoriya smiles.


End file.
